[MUD-Dev] Material state transformations

[Zach Collins {Siege}]

On Thu, 3 Jul 2003, McDonald, Stephen wrote:
> Yuri Bashukov asked:

>> I'm looking for characteristics of different states of material,
>> or at least some of them, which are "most known", or "visual" to
>> people.

> Are you really sure you want this?  Here are just a fraction of
> the characteristics that you could record:

The question being asked was apparently in two parts: What data
structures can be used to represent materials; and what properties
should be recorded for them.

The data structure part appears to have been answered.  My answer to
the question of what properties to use is, what properties do *you*
think your game needs these materials to have?  If you are
consistent, and at least a little realistic (for example, water
might be poisonous to sand trolls, but that's a feature of sand
trolls, not of water), you can get away with a lot of
simplification.

Water quenches thirst.  It dilutes other liquids.  It doesn't easily
decompose.  It has known boiling and freezing points.  It does not
compress well.  It has been used as a relative measure for other
materials (common calibration reference for temperature, mass,
volume, specific gravity).

Iron melts at very high temperature.  It can be forged or casted.
It is normally hard but slightly brittle when solid.  When forged
correctly, it can become steel.

But not all of these properties are necessarily relevant to your
game.  When the game needs them, you can add them, possibly as part
of other functions (forging makes items, extra time and other
resources like charcoal can be used to make steel items instead of
iron items).  But if you don't need a material property, then don't
use it.  This then becomes a design question: if later properties
must be added to a material, where should they be added?  I say, in
the place that makes most sense.  Details, like compressability, go
in the data arrays.  Processes go into functions.  Functions go
where they're relevant; state changes are part of a material's
inherent processes, for example, but forging (again) is a command
used by a player to take a material and give it a structural
identity (iron to armor).

At least, that's how I see it.
--
Zach Collins
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